Read Alex Cross 02 - Kiss the Girls for Free Online Page B

Alice’s adventures in
Through the Looking-Glass
when she was only four. A family friend gave her violin lessons, and she played well. She loved music, and still played whenever
     she had time. She graduated number one in her class at John Carroll High School in D.C. As busy as she was with her studies,
     she found time to write graceful prose on what life was like growing up in the projects. She reminded me of a young Alice
     Walker.
    Gifted.
    Very special.
    Missing for more than four days.
    The welcome mat wasn’t out for us at Durham’s brand-new police headquarters building, not even after Sampson and I showed
     our badges and IDs from Washington. The desk sergeant wasn’t impressed.
    He looked something like the TV weatherman Willard Scott. He had a full crewcut, long thick sideburns, and skin the color
     of fresh ham. After he found out who we were, it got a little worse. No red carpet, no Southern hospitality, no Southern comfort.
    Sampson and I got to sit and cool our heels in the duty room of the Durham Police Department. It was all shiny glass and polished
     wood. We received the kind of hostile looks and blank stares usually reserved for drug dealers caught around grade schools.
    “Feel like we just landed on Mars,” Sampson said as we waited and watched Durham’s finest, watched complainants come and go.
     “Don’t like the feeling I get from the Martians. Don’t like their beady little Martian eyes. Don’t think I like the new South.”
    “You think about it, we’d fit in the same anywhere,” I told Sampson. “We’d get the same reception, same cold stares, at Nairobi
     Police Headquarters.”
    “Maybe.” Sampson nodded behind his dark glasses. “But at least they’d be black Martians. At least they’d know who John Coltrane
     is.”
    Durham detectives Nick Ruskin and Davey Sikes finally came down to see us an hour and a quarter after we arrived.
    Ruskin reminded me a little of Michael Douglas in his dark-hero cop roles. He wore a coordinated outfit: green-and-tan tweed
     jacket, stonewashed jeans, yellow pocket T. He was about my height, which would make him six three or so, a little bigger
     than life. His longish brown hair was slicked back and razor-cut.
    Davey Sikes was well built. His head was a solid block that made sharp right angles with his shoulders. He had sleepy, oatmeal-brown
     eyes; almost no affect that I could discern. Sikes was a sidekick type, definitely not the leader. At least not if first appearances
     meant anything.
    The two detectives shook hands with us, and acted as if all were forgiven, as if they were forgiving us for intruding. I had
     the feeling that Ruskin especially was used to getting his way inside the Durham PD. He seemed like the local star. The main
     man around these parts. Matinee idol at the Durham Triplex.
    “Sorry about the wait, Detective Cross, Sampson. It’s been busy as a son of a bitch around here,” Nick Ruskin said. He had
     a light Southern accent. Lots of confidence in himself.
    He hadn’t mentioned Naomi by name yet. Detective Sikes was silent. Didn’t say a word.
    “You two like to take a ride with Davey and me? I’ll explain the situation on the way. There’s been a homicide. That’s what
     had us all tied. Police found a woman’s body out in Efland. This is a real bad one.”

Chapter 12
    T HIS IS
a real bad one. A woman’s body in Efland. What woman?
    Sampson and I followed Ruskin and Sikes out to their car, a forest-green Saab Turbo. Ruskin got in the driver’s seat. I remembered
     Sergeant Esterhaus’s words in
Hill Street Blues: “Let’s be careful out there.”
    “You know anything at all about the murdered woman?” I asked Nick Ruskin as we headed onto West Chapel Hill Street. He had
     his siren screaming and he was already driving fast. He drove with a kind of brashness and cockiness.
    “I don’t know enough,” Ruskin said. “That’s our problem, Davey’s and mine, with this investigation. We can’t get